A site where a man with far too much interest in beer gets to write about it.

Sunday, 5 November 2017

Limits to the craft beer price premium?

When I was last in the lake district perusing the beer range at Booths was a regular occurrence. I was interested to see they'd got beers in from Mikkeller, but after looking at them I decided not to buy. And I suspect I was not the only one.

Over the course of the week I didn't see any gaps appear in the blocks of beer on the shelf, so I suspect that other people came to the same conclusion. The beers weren't particularly strong (4.6 and 5.0% ABV), or (at least to me) particularly interesting, and perhaps crucially were over £3 for a small bottle. Though small craft beer cans and bottles generally sell for similar prices to beer in 500ml bottles breaking the £3 barrier seems to have been a price premiumisation too far, at least for a supermarket.

I'm far too tight to buy bottled beers in pubs so I couldn't say. And I don't think I've ever bought a pint of Peroni or Corona either. I'm sure people are prepared to pay more in pubs than shops though.